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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with beef, barley, turnip, carrots, celery, potatoes, and optional tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Saw the bones of the beef joint and place it in a soup kettle with 6 quarts of cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  3. Cook steadily for 4 to 5 hours, adding more water if it boils away too much.

Add the vegetables and barley

  1. About 2 hours before serving, add 1 cup of pearl barley.

  2. 1 hour before serving, add the grated turnip, grated carrots, dried celery leaves, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. If desired, add 1 tablespoon of tomatoes.

  4. Cut the potatoes into small pieces and add them with the other vegetables.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef joint
Releases flavour and gelatin into the broth during long simmering.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth and adds a chewy texture as it softens.
Potatoes
Add starch that softens into the soup and gives body to the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour to the soup.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavour and body to the vegetables.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after the boil. Foam from the beef contains impurities that cloud the broth and can taste bitter if left in. Removing it early keeps the soup clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, barley, turnip, carrot, celery, pepper, potato):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, barley, turnip, carrot, celery, pepper, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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